War On Coal Is War On Red States

Here's today's political quiz question: what do these five states - Rhode Island, Vermont, California, Connecticut, and Maine - have in common? Yes they are blue states ruled by Democrats, but that's not all. These are some of the states that use the least amount of coal - 2 percent or less- for electric power.

In fact, almost all of the states that are politically liberal and vote unfailingly Democratic ‎are low coal use states. For instance, Washington, New York, New Jersey and Oregon are also in the top ten states least reliant on coal. Only conservative Idaho is a red state in the bottom 10 states of coal power reliance.

Meanwhile, the heavy coal using states bleed red. West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming are all states that get about 90 percent of their electric power from coal. Missouri, Utah, Indiana, and North Dakota also get more than 75 percent of their electricity from coal. See table.

Mr. Obama announced last week the toughest environmental regulations ever against coal. This is part of the president's war on coal that he announced when he was running for president in 2008. He has long admitted these policies to reduce emissions from coal burning electric power plants by one-third below 2005 levels by 2030 will "bankrupt" the coal industry. In a September 2008 interview with San Francisco Chronicle, Obama declared, “If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.” Well, it's working. Coal towns are being vaporized across America and coal companies are going out of business.

But the pain from the new EPA rules won't be ‎evenly distributed across America. Far from it. A 2014 study by The Heritage Foundation scholars Nick Loris and Filip Jolevski find that 19 out of the 20 congressional districts most severely impacted in terms of manufacturing jobs losses in 2023 are in the Midwest- thanks to higher energy costs. In addition, the coal producing states like West Virginia and Wyoming will see significant job losses tied directly to coal production.. In 2023 alone, manufacturing jobs losses attributable to the new regulations are predicted to total 336,000. The liberal coastal states will feel relatively modest jobs losses because they rely less on manufacturing.

Nationwide, the costs will be about $100 billion a year throughout the 2015-2023 phase-in period or a reduction in GDP by about one-half percentage point, , –An average family of four will experience increased an income loss of about $1,200 a year by 2023. . Yes, Obama's policies that have had such a crushing effect on middle income family finances are about to get a whole lot worse.

Would Senator Barbra Boxer (D-CA) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D- RI), two of the biggest cheerleaders for the new regulations, be so euphoric if their voters were paying these massive costs for their green agenda? But the east and west coast green snobs can live with raising costs and unemployment in "fly over country."

It's time to label the Obama green policies what they truly are: steep taxes on red state America. By the way, many purple states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia also get hammered by Obama's climate change agenda.

The de facto tax that Mr. Obama wants to impose on American coal is doubly dastardly because it's impact will be felt hardest in relatively poorer states. And because Census Bureau data confirms that poor households spend 4 times more of their income on energy than rich families, the Obama policy will make income inequality much worse. But of course the upper crust Manhattan liberals who fund the Sierra Club and Obama and profess to care so much about the ‎poor, can live with that. So much for "environmental justice."

Maybe all of this pain would be worth it if somehow these policies were going to reduce global carbon emissions and stop global warming as Mr. Obama assures us the will. They won't. New data tells the opposite tale. China and India are adding coal plants on a massive scale. Worldwide at least 1,000 new coal plants are planned.

According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, for every unit of reduction in U.S. coal power capacity from 2011-2040, China and India alone will add more than 14 units. Even if the U.S. cut coal use to zero over the next 25 years, global emissions from coal will rise sharply. By 2040, China’s coal power capacity alone will be nearly 4 times the current U.S. capacity! So the Obama plan is all pain no gain. It would be like trying to reduce unwanted pregnancies in the third world by having Americans use more birth control. Stupid.

But back to the Obama assault on red and purple states. Let's hope the voters get the message that Mr. Obama's green energy policies are directed at their jobs and their paychecks. Most people in blue states and the workers around the rest of the world won't feel a thing. This is fair?

Stephen Moore is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. ‎

As a distinguished visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, I focus on advancing public policies that increase the rate of economic growth to help the United States retain its position as the global economic superpower. Prior to this role, I was a member of the Wall Stre...